According to Bruce Arnold, CEO at Pivotal Data, today's hyper-connected consumers demand efficient service, quicker transactions and a frictionless experience when engaging with a contact centre.

"Operators must therefore strike the right balance between the need to authenticate customers to ensure safety, security and regulatory compliance, without compromising on the customer experience (CX)," explains Arnold.

"Ensuring optimised CX has therefore become a strategic imperative. In this regard, voice biometric authentication technology is a real game-changer for contact centres, as it enables customers to easily and quickly verify their identity without the hassle of remembering PINs or passwords, or having to answer questions."

This removes the complexity and frustration inherent in traditional authentication processes. "This minimises average handling times and can therefore significantly reduce operating costs. It also results in a streamlined and seamless CX that boosts customer satisfaction, without compromising on security," continues Arnold.

By offering embedded voice authentication, Pivotal Data contact centre clients are able to authenticate callers over any form of voice communication, including landlines, feature and smartphones, and voice over IP connections.

A customer is first authenticated against a combination of validation techniques and then enrolled on the voice biometric solution, where their voice biometrics are securely stored in an encrypted and centralised hosted voice bank.

"Once this process has been completed, a customer's voice then becomes their unique form of identification. It can then be used to authenticate callers during subsequent calls, or when they engage with any contact centre that runs one of our hosted solutions as they gain immediate access to our optimally configured voice authentication engine," continues Arnold.